Book Review: From Idea to Web Start-up in 21 Days: Creating bacn.com

What does selling bacon on the Internet have to do with biotechnology business development? Almost nothing! But, that is what makes this book so valuable.

From Idea to Web Start-up in 21 Days: Creating bacn.com describes a shoestring venture to develop a simple web store. The founders decided to sell bacon due to the strong market draw (everybody knows what bacon is, and many people like it). The challenge is to differentiate a universally-available product, market it, and distribute the perishable good while making a profit.

The relevance of this book to biotechnology business development is that it focuses on all the things that many biotechnology entrepreneurs don’t (but should) think about. There are no patents, there is minimal R&D — the emphasis is on marketing and distribution. Even more, the authors frankly describe their many mis-steps. They struggle to buy inexpensive but effective infrastructure (freezers), they make bad co-promotion deals, and they search for ways to exit the business. These types of challenges are shared by biotechnology companies.

The simple nature of the bacn.com business, and the focus on elements that many early-stage biotechnology founders ignore, make it an excellent resource. I recommend this book for any early-stage entrepreneur.

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